Was selfish enough to say for the creature that had stolen one child's life and that might have caused this one to exist?
Was foolish enough to say for the creature who had overthrown all the good that was Mauryl—all the kindness, all the wit, all the learning, all the skill—was foolish and spiteful and selfish enough to compass Mauryl's enemy?
And was selfish enough to describe the desire that had wrecked Elwynor and slaughtered the innocent and driven hapless peasants into the snow?
It might be. Wicked might describe his enemy. But had he not killed? Had he not driven Parsynan out onto the road, and Cuthan across the river? And did not the soldiers who fell to him have kindness of their own, and wit, and learning, and skill?
The sword had found its place to stand in this fortress, too. It lurked by hearthsides, the alternative to peace and reason.
Truthit said on one side. Illusionwas engraved on the other, and the Edge was the answer to the riddle it posed. It was the answer; to the riddle heposed. It answered all he was, and there was no word for him but the Edge of that riddle.
Perhaps there was such a word for his enemy, neither evil, nor; wicked, nor even selfish, but some edge between absolutes. Perhaps that was why wizards could not compass it.
Not even Hasufin Heltain had compassed it… only listened to its whispers and its unreasoning reason. What would a man needwith the whole world? What would a Man need with absolute power?
If he could understand that, he thought he might understand his enemy, and how Hasufin had fallen to him.
"M'lord." Tassand was brisk and cheerful, arriving in the room, disturbing his thoughts as freely as if something good had happened. "M'lord! Lord Crissand's back. He's here."
" Ishe?" Tristen reached on the instant for the gray space and restrained himself from that folly. "Where is he?"
But in that moment Crissand answered his question by appearing behind Tassand in the short foyer. Dark-haired Amefin, and dour as the Amefin could be, Crissand was all fair skies and brave ventures on most days… but now he was muddy, travel-worn, and exhausted.
"My lord," Crissand said in a thread of a voice.
"Sit down," Tristen urged him, and scurrying about at the back of his mind was the realization that Crissand was never yet a presence in the gray space: he simply could not find him; and had not found him, even with him here, in the same room. Thatalarmed him. "Tassand, hot tea and bricks."
Crissand had surely come straight up from his arrival, coming to him still in mud-flecked boots, lacking a cloak which might have been sorrier than the boots, and all but out of strength.
"Forgive me. Forgive me, my lord. I knew before I was the first night on the road that I was doing something foolish."
"Where wereyou?" Crissand was a candleflame of a wizard as yet, and he had known and master Emuin had known where Crissand was… but not precisely wherehe was.
But still not to know wherehe was when he was in the same room with him: that was the inconceivable thing.
He searched with great care, investigated more and more of the gray space in concern for Crissand's welfare, and at last found a very quiet, very small presence, all wrapped in on itself, all knotted up and resisting.
In that condition, Crissand had ridden home again, through this weather.
"I thought it better for Amefel," Crissand said in the voice he had left, "if I went to Lord Drusenan and spoke to him directly."
It was a minuscule part of the reason Crissand had gone and a minuscule part of what must have sent him back in such a state, but at least it was a start on the rest of the tale, and now that he was safe and here, Tristen was willing to use infinite patience. He sat down opposite Crissand beside the warm fire, waiting for the part that might explain why Crissand had left on such a journey on the tyght his remote cousins—and Drusenan's—had suddenly turned up estitute, escaped from Guelen vengeance, one of them with child… and both of them breaking the terms of their exile.
He understood entirely what Crissand had likely wanted to do, which was to set distance between himself and Orien Aswydd. He even understood why Crissand had gone to speak to the new Lord
Bryn, successor to the man who had done so much harm to Cris -
and's father and his people. But the silence in the gray space even now kept Crissand at distance from him, and he waited to hear those reasons from Crissand's own lips.
And waited, and waited. The silence went on between them what seemed an eternity; so he ventured his own opening.
"So did you make peace with Drusenan?" Tristen asked.
"With a will." Crissand seemed relieved to be asked that question and not others: his whole body relaxed toward his habitual easy grace… but that motion ended in a wince, an injury he had not made otherwise evident. "He was as glad as I was, to settle at! grudges. He wasn't glad to hear the news about Lady Orien and her sister being here. He's not her man. We agreed together, that our quarrel is all with Cuthan, across the river, and I know now in my own heart and for certain he's not Cuthan's man, nor ever was or will be. He received me very graciously, he and his lady."
Crissand finished. The silence resumed.
Then with a deep breath, Crissand added, "My lord, my patient, good lord, I should have asked leave, considering the state of things. Other men come and go. But you've given me duties; I thought I was seeing to those duties—I persuaded myself I was doing that—but before I was halfway to Modeyneth I knew I was a fool."
"I would have granted leave for you to go anywhere. But you left without your guard, and without my hearing you. You were a night on the road before I knew you were gone," Tristen said, "and then I dared not call you too loudly, not with the Aswydds so close. If theyurged you to do such a thing, they were very quiet about it."
"I'd do nothing they asked!"
"If you knew they asked it."
Crissand was silent, and troubled of countenance, thinking on that, and at no time had he unfurled from the tight, small presence he was.
"I searched for you," Tristen said.
"I didn't hear you, my lord. Unless you were telling me I was a fool—I knew before the night was half-done that that was the truth. I came the rest of the way to my senses when the sun came up and I was trying to find the road in the snowfall. But by then I realized Modeyneth was hardly over the next hill, and my poor horse couldn't have carried me back without foundering. So I went ahead, hoping to borrow a horse, and I presented myself to Lord Drusenan. I wanted to bring you someprofit for my foolishness."
"I needed no gifts," Tristen said. "I need nothing but your loyalty—and your safety."
It was not his intent to cause pain, only to urge caution, but
Crissand's color rose and he looked away, surely knowing how he had risked all that they hoped to accomplish.
gut it was not just foolishness, and that he had somehow to make Crissand understand… and that he could not avow a clear reason for his actions made a frighteningly clear sense, for Crissand had ridden out in the very hour the Aswydd sisters had ridden into Henas'amef, and while on the one hand he did not know what exact thought had seized Crissand to send him out, he was as sure now as he was sure of the next sunrise that Crissand's actions had directly to do with the sisters' arrival, and all of it directly to do with the currents in the magical wind—for Crissand was Aswydd.